inaccurate but right
by camellialice
Summary: It takes him years, but finally he tells her he loves her. Clintasha.


**A.N.** Eek! This is the first time i've written for this fandom, it's kinda scary...

To all of those waiting for an update of A billion stars, that has just been sent off to my beta! She was away for two weeks and thus i had no way to get it to her... but it is coming asap!

Beta'd by the extraordinary minioner and Kylie Potter

* * *

It takes him years, but finally he tells her he loves her.

He tells her in abandoned buildings, he tells her in hotel rooms, he tells her on beaches and streets and rooftops and in their bedroom.

He tells her with his eyes, his hands, his lips, his tongue.

She never tells him, because she doesn't have to.

He knows.

He'd begin at the beginning, but he can't, because all he can remember from that day is _her_, a blur of red and black, silent but deadly and mesmerizing. His job is simple, shoot her and get out, but his hand shakes- his hand _never_ shakes- and he almost drops his bow. He aims for her heart but can't bring himself to release the arrow. He's supposed to shoot her, so in the end he does, but in the thigh- an area that will heal quickly but slow her down long enough for one conversation.

SHIELD is furious, and he doesn't care.

Her life is hell, and then Clint happens.

She hates the idea of a knight in shining armor, hates the suspicion that such a trope might be applied to her life, at first hates him because she hates being in debt to someone.

But she can't hate him long because he's Clint, because he saved her life and then fixed her heart where it was broken. There is red in her ledger and nothing she can do will wipe it out.

So she tries to make it up with silent promises, with glances and kisses and all of herself.

What she doesn't understand is that the same day she met him and he spared her life, she saved his as well.

As a team they work seamlessly. They are as one mind with two bodies, anticipating each other's movement and reacting just in time to save the other's skin, again and again and again.

In Lisbon she goes undercover to socialize and flirt with powerful nobility while he freezes his ass off on a nearby roof, the wintry air chilling him to the bone. She must be cold too, he thinks, in only a slinky black dress, which, like everything she wears to such events after meticulous picking and choosing, hugs her in all the right places and compliments her natural beauty in a way that he would never dare mention to her (except maybe in the context of a joke, but that seems disloyal to the depth of his feelings and besides, she'd probably hit him). He watches her cajole the necessary information out of their target and shoots two suspicious security guards, his arrows whistling across the gap between his perch and the garden below.

The mission is complete in two hours, cleanly executed and wonderfully successful.

He begs Fury to let them stay together as partners, and Fury says yes because it would be stupid not to.

She trusts him.

She trusts him because she trusts no one else in the world. She trusts him because he is her partner, her best friend, her lover, her other half. She trusts him because he cherishes her trust, protects it like some fragile and beautiful thing. She trusts him because he sees in her something worth protecting, and in him she sees something worth her trust.

He knows more about her than anyone else alive. He knows that her hair is naturally golden, he knows that she hates the color red but is drawn to it like a moth to a flame, he knows that she cried at the end of Moulin Rouge and he knows what happened to her parents.

He is the only one allowed to touch her when she's injured, to carry her when she needs it, to hold her when she's scared and to sleep in her bed.

He recognizes the significance of her trust and is at times overwhelmed by it, but he honors it nonetheless and in return she honors his.

She trusts him, and yet every day he wonders why.

She kisses him on a beach in France ("Very romantic," he teases, and she slaps him).

Their lips fit together like two pieces of a broken artifact, reunited after centuries of separation. The kiss is a breath of fresh air, a beam of light in a dark world, a drop of rain after a month of drought.

They sit side by side and watch the waves crash upon the shore. He finds a beautiful white shell and hands it to her. He is the only one allowed to know how much she likes pretty things. In return she gives him another kiss, which he accepts enthusiastically. There's a smile in his eyes and one on her face, and the sun is shining beatifically upon them.

A stranger tells them they make an adorable couple, and Clint watches Natasha's jaw clench ever so slightly and laughs to himself.

There is no moment of revelation, no discovery, no "Eureka!" It's not even a surprise. Over time, the realization dawns on him, and he thinks, _of course_, and it's done.

So he tells her that he loves her, and waits for a reaction.

She smiles into the wind.

In Budapest they fight.

It's her fault, he thinks, for risking too much and putting her life on the line, more than was required for the mission. It's his fault, she claims, for worrying too much and treating her like a baby who can't take care of herself. It's both of their faults, they later conclude, for they were tired and cranky and stressed and terrified for each other's safety.

The fight only happened because they cared too much.

There is screaming and shouting and pushing and, worst of all, whispered words that hurt more than a punch to the stomach. They can each hold their own in hand to hand combat, but in a battle fought with words and feelings and hurt they're both lost and vulnerable. They've never fought before, not in the whole year they've been working together, and it scares them both.

Neither is able to sleep that night, and in the morning Clint buys her flowers. She meets him at the hotel room door, her eyes red from crying, and laughs at the sight of the bouquet. He grins back, and suddenly all is forgiven.

The flowers lay abandoned on the deck of her hotel room all day while they explore the city, hand in hand.

When she hears that he is compromised, her stomach drops and her blood freezes. He is compromised and she can't think or breathe or even try to stop the fear from creeping up inside her.

She stays long enough to finish the interrogation, and doesn't let herself really panic until she is safe in her own room. Then she does so in her own way, crawling under the covers and wishing the world away while clinging to a cracked, pure white seashell, a memento of what she is missing.

She says that love is for children, but she doesn't mention that she never had a real childhood before Clint, nor did he before her. At the beach they throw sand at each other, they make fun of aristocratic guests at expensive parties, after missions they curl up together and nap like kittens. They are two of the world's top assassins, and sometimes they behave like they are ten years old.

She says that love is for children but she doesn't mention how young and vulnerable she feels when she wakes up screaming at night and Clint finds her. He holds her to his chest and lets her soak his pyjamas with her tears. He pats her hair and doesn't bother to tell her it'll be alright (they both know it won't) but he cradles her in his arms anyway until she drifts back to sleep.

She says that love is for children but doesn't mention that part of her never got a chance to grow up.

She says that love is for children but doesn't deny that she is a child.

He tells her that he loves her, and nothing changes.

True, there's more sex and kissing and physical contact, but in the end, their dynamic remains the same. Having their feelings out in the open doesn't make much difference when those same feelings have been around for ages. Putting a label to it doesn't make it more valid, it just gives it nomenclature and some kind of closure.

Closure, that is, with the promise of continuity.

They don't get married because marriage would be pointless, redundant. They don't get married because weddings are a lot of fuss and paperwork and they aren't the kind of people patient enough to deal with that. They don't need to be married to reaffirm their feelings, they don't need rings to bind themselves to each other. She has a seashell and he has her kisses and that is enough.

After all, one might argue that they said their vows a long time ago, before love even came into the picture.

He tells her that he loves her, and they both know it isn't true.

Love is a poor substitute for what they have, a bond that runs deeper than their hearts. It's in their heads, their blood, their breath. It's the quiet shiver in the cold of Lisbon, it's their interlocking fingers in Budapest and their lips in France. It's a pure white seashell, now chipped and cracked from being held (and dropped) so many times. It's the flash of a smile and the twinkle in their eyes. It's what makes them an unbeatable team and an inseparable partnership. It's something that doesn't even necessarily have to be articulated.

But he feels something stirring inside of him, something that he's nursed secretly for too long, and his feelings spill out into words and he tells her that he loves her.

And in that second they both know that love isn't the word he's looking for but it's as close as their vocabulary can get.

And that's okay. Love is as good a word as any. It may not express their relationship in its entirety, but then again, nothing can.

He tells her that he loves her, and she smiles.

"Love is for children," she says.

"So I've heard."

A beat, then he wonders, "Are we children?"

She dusts the sand from her palms and kisses him gently in response.

She never answers his question, but she doesn't have to, and she can't, anyway. The answer is: in a sense, yes, in another, no.

Love is for children, but they are beyond that.

He tells her that he loves her, and it may not be accurate, but it is _right_, and that is enough.


End file.
